As it has become common among users to consume multimedia services on portable devices, the problem of utilizing screen space efficiently has drawn increasing attention. Key to efficient screen utilization is the provision of well thought-out virtual keypad interfaces that do not occupy excessive amounts of screen space and are easily hidden from view when needed. However, at present, virtual keypads very often fail to satisfy these criteria. For example, when a user places his/her finger on a virtual keypad in an attempt to hide the virtual keypad from view, the portable terminal displaying the virtual keypad may often misinterpret the user's touch as a virtual keypad input and perform an incorrect input operation instead. Furthermore, sometimes, virtual keypads can be too large in size, thus occupying screen space that is better used for multimedia presentation.
Accordingly, the need exists for new interfaces for controlling virtual keypads in electronic devices.